Oh, you can't lose weight and get a "gym body" just by sprinkling some weird powder of undisclosed ingredients onto your food? You don't say. The ambitious (and completely unrealistic) claims made by sketchy weight-loss products like Sensa and LeanSpa may be tempting -- who wouldn't jump at the chance to achieve said gym body without spending one precious second on the elliptical? -- but we've always seen them for what they are, and that's sketchy. How these companies have been able to continue their ridiculous marketing over the years is beyond us. At last, the Federal Trade Commission is cracking down, and they're not going to let these products get away with it anymore.
The commission is no stranger to instigating lawsuits with these companies, and this time, four familiar brand names are on the chopping block. We expected this type of shady behavior from Sensa Products, HCG Diet Direct, and LeanSpa... but our beloved L'Occitane? Well, let's just say we've got a serious bone to pick with their body creams promising a "noticeably slimmer, trimmer you." And the fraud is all but official: the four aforementioned companies, who neither admitted nor denied their fault, will pay a collective $34 million to swindled consumers.

Says Jessica Rich, the director of the commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, "Resolutions to lose weight are easy to make but hard to keep" -- don't we know it -- "and the chances of being successful just by sprinkling something on your food, rubbing cream on your thighs or using a supplement are slim to none. The science just isn't there." You hear that, Kardashians? We know you achieved your trim bodies and weight loss through boring old diet and exercise, not those weight-loss supplements they pay you millions to shill! [New York Times]